Paris of the north Robert Whyte In an attempt to tie together the last of the Joh years, the years of effervescent and celebrated satire, poking fun at a police state, Robert Whyte here looks at the change from conservative to Labor rule. It is a wistful recollection as Queensland left behind the crazy days of Joh’s corruption, repression and preposterous hubris. Joh was a bona fide nutjob who wouldn’t have lasted a second in the real world and didn’t, as it turned out, being shamed and ridiculed for his failed ‘Joh for PM’ campaign. Yet Joh was the flashpoint for the surge in interest from the southern states. Without him we wouldn’t have had our fifteen minutes of fame. Maybe we would have, but we’ll never know, will we? Does edgy satire require a reactionary, conservative regime to really flourish? It looks like it does. IN THE NEW BRISBANE, there is no Sydney or Melbourne envy, no longing for London or pining for New York. We spit on your steenking badges of class and taste. We make our own rules because, deep down, everyone who lives here knows Brisbane is the centre of the universe, the creative hub, the Paris of the north. Growing up in those civilised places down south, there was a place for you, no matter how arty, weird, green or radioactive. You really could be a rebel. Or so you think. As Mexicans,1 compared with us you are only Claytons2 rebels, ersatz innovators, placebo protesters. You had it made. ‘Slip into something more radical. I’ll just fix us a pre-dinner bong.’ In Brisbane there was no pathway to success for bright young things in the farcical gerontocracy that was the Bjelke-Petersen government. Up here we were on the outside or, more accurately, underneath, under the white-shoe veneer. We were in the underground, labyrinthine sewers where, unlike the shiny beige cushioned world above, life was dirty, dangerous and real. Opposite: 1 Southerners. Paisley Pirates of 2 Claytons was a non-alcoholic beverage in Australia and New Zealand in the 1970s Penzance poster, and ’80s: ‘the drink you have when you’re not having a drink’. In Australian and New illustration and Zealand vernacular it stands for an ersatz or dummy thing, or something that is obviously ineffective. For example, a knowledgeable but unqualified handyman could be referred to design by Damien as a ‘Claytons carpenter’. The term can also be used as an insult. Ledwich, 1985. 188 Eccentric Voices: A scrapbook of Brisbane cultural history 1965–1995 Eccentric Voices: A scrapbook of Brisbane cultural history 1965–1995 189 The parallels between occupied We knocked down historic heritage buildings in the middle of the night France in the Second World War and because we needed to keep our days free for raids on suspected abortion Brisbane under Bjelke-Petersen are clinics and stopping pregnant women getting on planes to have an abortion inescapable. Goodness gracious me, in Sydney. We had a whale of a time. In fact, Queensland was a proud we invited neo-Stalinist Romanian whaling nation, or at least parts of it were. dictator Nicolae Ceausescu to dinner! The Bjelke-Petersen era was 1968 to 1987. First signs of a reactionary Ceausescu, who visited Brisbane and authoritarian, rather than just conservative, regime came with him Concertgoers were dismayed when during World Expo in April 1988, had met Bjelke-Petersen in late 1987 granting six-year leases to prospect for oil on the Great Barrier Reef to Exoil Blondie cancelled a when Joh, with mining magnate mate Lang Hancock, visited Bucharest to NL and Transoil NL. He was a major shareholder in both. This was followed performance at Her woo Ceausescu with Queensland coal (and Western Australia as a job lot). by a windfall for several Queensland government ministers and senior Majesty’s Theatre. Debbie Harry became Ceausescu and his wife were machine-gunned to death by a firing squad on public servants, as well as Florence Bjelke-Petersen, from the public float of ill after eating too Christmas Day 1989. Ceausescu, a run-of-the-mill European dictator, had Comalco, a mining company that had direct dealings with the government many cherries. indulged in crimes against the people, including genocide. ‘You’d never think and senior ministers. The shares bought due to this insider trading doubled TELEGRAPH 9 DECEMBER 1977 he had blood on his hands,’ Joh said to under-treasurer Leo Hielscher on the their price on their first day of trading. Bjelke-Petersen rejected claims of way back from the meeting. Don’t you worry about that. conflict of interest in all these dealings. You think you Welshies and Vics had it tough when you had Gorton and The 1971 redistribution resulted in Brisbane electorates averaging about McMahon making it hard on you to stage sit-ins, to ‘occupy’ Melbourne and 22,000 voters, some rural seats such as Gregory and Balonne had fewer than Sydney. You poor things. In Brisbane we had the pleasure of taking down 7000. It was at this time that Joh found his ‘style’, that of authoritarian strong the whole Whitlam government, when good old Joh flouted the rules and man, prepared to crush any left-wing, greenie, anti-uranium, trade union appointed Albert Field to the Senate, which led to the Whitlam dismissal. We uprising in a police state, a strategy characteristic of despots. had a state of emergency declared in order to play rugby. Six hundred police In 1972 Whitlam and Labor came to power federally. In the parallel with were transported to Brisbane from elsewhere and a series of violent attacks by Paris, this was rather like America’s entry into the Second World War. Joh police on demonstrators occurred during the Springboks tour. Joh described fought the 1974 state election on opposing ‘the alien and stagnating, centralist, the tour as ‘great fun, a game of chess in the political arena’, which ‘put me socialist, communist-inspired policies of the federal Labor government’. As on the map’. Joh wielded the iron fist against students and unions, resulting TV coverage You took to the streets to have a good old squawk about your pet saw Rosemary Severin being bashed over the head with a police baton during problems, like war. Queensland banned street marches altogether in 1978. a street march, and Police Commissioner Ray Whitrod announcing he would You supported Medicare. In Queensland the government opposed it because hold an inquiry. Bjelke-Petersen quashed it, saying he was tired of radical it was obviously out-and-out socialism. Not only did Queensland oppose any groups believing they could take over the streets. chance of land rights for Aboriginal people, Indigenous groups were banned Police officers passed a motion at a meeting commending the premier for from being able to own large tracts of land. Joh was rather happy with AIDS his ‘distinct stand against groups acting outside the law’ and censured their and HIV because it might wipe out Indigenous communities. No condom own police commissioner. The police state was in full swing, with a military- machines, public safe-sex campaigns and school sex-education programs style raid on a hippie commune at Cedar Bay in far north Queensland late the up here, lads. Gay men (publicly denounced as deviants) were banned from following month. The police, who had been looking for marijuana, set fire to entering pubs and clubs, men suspected of being gay were arrested and the residents’ houses and destroyed their property. Queensland tried to make lesbianism illegal, a valiant attempt that failed Bjelke-Petersen’s increasingly hardline approach to civil liberties because, like the Queen, most Queenslanders didn’t know what lesbianism prompted Queensland National Party president Robert Sparkes to warn was or, if they did, weren’t going to admit it. the party that it was developing a dangerous propaganda-created ultra- 190 Eccentric Voices: A scrapbook of Brisbane cultural history 1965–1995 Eccentric Voices: A scrapbook of Brisbane cultural history 1965–1995 191 The Cane Toad Times contributors in the conservative, almost fascist image. He told a party conference: ‘We must Labour Day march in Brisbane wearing studiously avoid any statements or actions which suggest an extreme right- Tony Fitzgerald Fan wing posture.’ Bjelke-Petersen ignored the advice. He went from strength Club T-shirts. to strength, from corrupt power to a ludicrous Mein Kampf style biography, Jigsaw, lauding him as a ‘statesman extraordinaire’ and ‘protectorate of Queensland and her people’. The parallels with an occupied France, with Brisbane occupied by National Party overlords, go deeper. We had an underground, of course, and it was a melting pot of artists, journalists, architects, writers, musicians and other creative radical types, making posters and sneaking around in the dark putting them up on the walls of Bjelke-Petersen House, but we were not without the encouragement and support from ‘allies’ first in the Whitlam government, then in the Hawke federal government. At the same time as street marches were banned, the Hawke government funded community arts and agit-prop theatre. It must have cheesed off the Queensland premier no end. In the same year, 1985, Paisley Pirates of Penzance was followed by On 20 April 1985 the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) another successful underground satire, Conway Christ, Redneck Superstar, opened with a production of Pirates of Penzance. The Brisbane cultural again directed by Sean Mee and David Pyle, with a cast and crew of over 120. underground did not fail to notice the opening show was wholly imported Meanwhile, Joh unveiled plans to create seven new electorates with from interstate.